


When we lay together on the fresh Spring grass

by Persiflage



Series: The Ways You Said 'I Love You' [6]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Bernie Wolfe Lives, Canon Schmanon, Cheerfully Ignoring Any and All Canon as the Lord Intended, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Massage, Outdoor Sex, Prompt Fic, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Canon Divergence: Bernie Wolfe lives and Leah wasn't allowed to ruin anything.
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Series: The Ways You Said 'I Love You' [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750207
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60





	When we lay together on the fresh Spring grass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bat_and_Breakfast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bat_and_Breakfast/gifts), [sevtacular](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevtacular/gifts).



> Written for The Ways You Said ‘I Love You’ list of prompts. 
> 
> Basically another big Fuck You to canon.

It’s a lovely Spring day.

Bernie Wolfe, tired from exhaustively pushing her grandniece Guinevere on the swing and glad to have got said grandniece off to sleep, flops down onto the picnic blanket her wife Serena had laid down on the fresh Spring grass an hour and a half ago. 

“I swear that gets more exhausting every time,” Bernie observes, her fingers tangling with Serena’s as she reaches automatically for Bernie once she lies down.

“Aw, grandma, are you getting old?” teases Serena.

“Rude,” Bernie retorts. She starts to roll onto her side, intending to roll atop Serena and pin her down with kisses, but stops with a quiet yelp.

“Bernie?” Serena sits up as her wife remains in a contorted position, her legs still flat on the blanket, her upper body half twisted towards her. “Not your back?” she asks worriedly.

“My back,” Bernie groans.

Serena carefully eases her body over so that she’s lying on her stomach. “Oh, my darling,” she sighs, shaking out her fingers, then flexing them a few times. “No more pushing Guin on the swing for you, I’m afraid.”

Bernie’s attempt to respond is lost in a groan, half agony, half relief, as Serena begins to carefully massage her back through the thin t-shirt she’s wearing. (She’d removed her button down shirt earlier, before spending an hour pushing the swing.)

Serena takes her time about unknotting every muscle, then just gently rubbing her hands over Bernie’s back.

“You asleep yet?” 

A sleepy and incomprehensible mumble comes from the woman beneath her hands, and she chuckles softly, then leans down and presses a light kiss to the nape of Bernie’s neck.

“I do love you, you know,” she says softly.

“I should bloody well hope so,” comes the swift reply. “Otherwise why’d you marry me?”

Serena can’t help shrieking just a little when Bernie rolls over and pulls her wife down atop her.

“I thought you’d gone to sleep,” she says, shocked.

“I was only halfway there,” Bernie says with a smirk. “Now come here, wife of mine, and let me thank you properly for easing my back.”

Serena moans as Bernie’s mouth finds hers, her tongue instantly sliding into the brunette’s mouth. Her hands slide over Serena’s curves, too, teasing and squeezing, and Bernie finds herself somewhat surprised at what her wife lets her get away with, given they’re in their garden and not their bed. True, the garden’s surrounded by tall conifers, which provide an excellent screen against any potential busybodies – and they’ve no real neighbours to speak of since the house is detached, but still, it’s not like Serena to let Bernie get away with giving her two orgasms in broad daylight while outdoors, even if the two of them are both still fully dressed.

“I swear you get saucier the older you get,” Serena observes once she’s recovered from her breathlessness.

“Mmm, but you like me saucy, don’t you, Fräulein?”

“I must do since, as you observed, I married you.”

Bernie smirks, one hand on Serena’s lower back, beneath the camisole top she’s wearing, the other cupping the back of her neck and toying with the short hairs there. 

“I do love you, Serena Wendy Campbell,” she whispers, nuzzling her nose against her wife’s.

“I love you, too. But you’d better let me get up or we’ll embarrassed when Jason and Greta turn up shortly to collect their daughter.”

Bernie sighs dramatically, then smirks when Serena rolls her eyes. “Very well, then.” She lets go of her wife, and they make it up off the blanket with only a tiny bit of groaning on Bernie’s part.

“You should go and have a shower or a bath,” Serena says, pausing in her folding of the picnic blanket. “Take some painkillers, too.”

Bernie offers her a sloppy salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

Serena tuts. “Get away with you, woman.”

Bernie chuckles, then heads indoors, aware that a long, hot soak in the tub will help. She’s also aware that she really shouldn’t have had sex with Serena in the garden instead of in their bed as it has somewhat undone the good she did by massaging Bernie’s back. But she will take that secret to her grave.

As she settles into the bathtub she can’t help thinking how glad she is that she had made the decision, two years ago, not to let Serena break up with her after the incident with Leah. She’d come back to the house and waited for Serena to return from work, and they had talked for hours, and cried a fair amount, and eventually agreed that they didn’t really want to give up on their relationship. 

Bernie had been able to secure a locum position at Holby, which had been converted into a permanent position fairly swiftly, and she and Serena had started again, even going to couple’s therapy together – which Bernie found even harder than the therapy she had been to before Nairobi. But it had been worth it. They had talked and argued – although they’d always made up reasonably quickly – and after several months, Bernie had moved back into Serena’s again, and then they had got married a few months ago. It had been a small ceremony: Jason and his family, Cam and Morven, Lottie, Donna, Ric, Hanssen, and Raf and Fletch, and the Fletchlings. 

They’d held the wedding at the vineyard where Serena – and Bernie for a short time – had stayed after Ellie’s death, and then they’d had a three week honeymoon there in the south of France, picking grapes and drinking wine, and making love until they fell asleep in each other’s arms. It had been a glorious time, and it had been wonderful to come back to Holby, where they were now both working part time, having decided on semi-retirement from surgery. They were both in demand to teach new surgeons, Bernie moreso than Serena, to her embarrassment – although Serena genuinely didn’t seem to mind – and they were often away from home. It was, Bernie reflected, more than she’d dared dream of having after giving up her Army career. 

“I hope you’re not falling asleep in there, Major,” Serena says as she enters the ensuite, a teasing lilt to her voice. When she sees Bernie is wide awake, and now smiling at her wife, she raises an eyebrow. “Something caught your eye?”

“Mmm. Someone, more like,” Bernie says, because Serena is wearing nothing but a pair of bedroom slippers and the sheer silk robe that had been part of her Valentine’s Day present to her wife last year. “Are you joining me?”

“Would like me to?” Serena’s expression is coy, but Bernie’s not fooled for an instant.

“Foolish question, Campbell,” she says, and stands up, startling Serena, who then shrieks when Bernie grabs her hand and draws her close before lifting her bodily out of her slippers and into the bath with her.

“Mind your back,” Serena admonishes.

Bernie rolls her eyes. “My back is fine.” She slides the robe off her wife, glad that she picked one that’s so short it barely covers her arse, so it hasn’t got wet. 

“You’re being saucy. Again.” There’s no bite to Serena’s words, so Bernie just smirks, then kisses her. They sink down into the water and Serena’s soon being as saucy as Bernie had been out in the garden earlier.


End file.
